The Best and Worst of Raw 3/21/11 offers up the best (meaning the highest quality to be found in a given activity or category of things) and worst (most faulty, unsatisfactory, or objectionable) of the March 21 edition of WWE Raw. Brandon Stroud is a syndicated advice columnist whose weekly column, The Best and Worst of Raw 3/21/11, is featured in over 250 newspapers nationwide.

In my continuing efforts to revive the career progress I was making before FanHouse turned itself into a roll-over ad with a 1000 x 1000 image of Tiger Woods on the front and a link to somebody’s Listverse at the bottom, With Leather proudly (cough) welcomes The Best and Worst of Raw to its schedule. For those of you who were familiar with FanHouse Pro Wrestling, you’ll recognize the column as the only sane, literate place to read about fake fighting on the entire Internet. If you weren’t one of our readers, please enjoy this enormous block of non sequitur paragraphs and jokes you will barely understand.

Long story short, I love pro wrestling, and it is a hard, hard thing to love.

Worst: HHH Cerebrally Assassinates Wakefulness

In case you missed it, here is a transcript of Triple H’s promo from Monday night:

“Y’know, Undertaker, nobody has ever beaten you at Wrestlemania. But in two weeks, at Wrestlemania, I will beat you, Undertaker. Undertaker, let’s get one thing straight… you are going to lose. I am going to beat you, Undertaker, at the Wrestlemania event in two weeks. So next week, Undertaker, I want to bring you out here and explain that in two weeks, Undertaker, I will beat you at Wresltemania.”

Who is he wrestling, and when exactly is this “Wrestlemania” you speak of happening?

Copy and paste that like eleven times into Wordpad and throw in some clip art of H sleeping and you’ve got the segment. Seriously, I think he lost track of what he was saying because he was literally boring himself to sleep and/or death mid-ring. I’m not the type to ramble on about backstage politics or get bent out of shape when one of my favorite guys loses a match, but man, wrestling sure is better when Triple H isn’t around.

Props to Ted DiBiase for stepping in and making sure everyone knows HE’S the worst guy on Raw. Seriously, DiBiase has got to clear 200 grand a year and all he does is show up, appear for about 14 seconds, get punched in the face and leave. You guys can’t pay Mike Quackenbush half that to do the same thing? At least he’d use his money to make sure I get to see Big Japan every year.

Best: Dolph Ziggler Is Too Good For This Wrestling

Hey, casual fan, remember that episode of Raw you watched like two years ago? Remember how you didn’t understand why Sheamus was getting shoved down our throats, or why Drew McIntyre was being touted as the “chosen one” despite looking like Lance Hoyt had a baby with Brian Kendrick, or what the deal was with Dolph Ziggler and his stupid “introduce myself and my stupid name” gimmick? Well, it turns out that WWE’s current crop of talent is the best reason ever to keep watching, pay attention and stop fast forwarding through everything you think will be bad on your DVR.

Being stuffed in a crate and shipped back to OVW by DX was the best thing that ever happened to Dolph Ziggler. Somehow the guy weathered an insider gimmick and one of the shoot worst names ever given a wrestler to become the undisputed king of bad ass mainstream pro wrestling. Ziggler is crisp, quick, powerful and working on a completely different level than almost everyone else at his place of employment. Daniel Bryan is as good as him in the ring, but doesn’t have his look or size. Morrison is as fast as him, but nowhere near as good. Cody Rhodes has a better gimmick, but nobody watches Smackdown. Ziggler is the ace of Monday Night Raw, down to looking like the 2011 version of Johnny Ace might’ve looked.

At this point, you should be fast forwarding everything BUT Dolph Ziggler.

Supplementary Best: Vickie Guerrero

I think WWE Creative secretly follows me around the Internet, logging what I have to say and putting together Ziggler, Vickie Guerrero and LayCool in some sort of supergroup of goofy people the casual fan hates and Brandon loves. I don’t know how you could watch Layla scream for Trish’s horrible Bob Ross happy little tree paintbrush chops like she’s being put in a Torture Crab or see Vickie making cougar hands while pinning John Morrison and not support them. Even Michelle McCool earns points for having a hood attached to the smallest shirt ever sewn. They’re great, and they make the entertainment passing for wrestling fun.

And I don’t know, I think Eddie married one of his relatives, because Vickie is a straight up Guerrero by blood.

Worst: Randy Orton’s Big Love

Only two theories seem valid: Randy Orton’s wife is a mutant shapeshifter who takes on the appearance of a local stripper in every town to make sure the Viper’s enemies don’t use her as a pawn in their sinister machinations, or Orton is a polygamist. I will also accept that she is a Changeling, like Odo from Deep Space Nine.

As of now, Randy Orton has had four on-screen wives. The one who was hanging out with him at home the night Triple H broken in, the one from last week, the one from last night who doesn’t know the difference between being scared and turned on, and the real one he doesn’t think is pretty enough to be on television. Can’t you guys at least fly in the same “actress” to portray her when you need her? I know you wrote down her name somewhere. Shelton Benjamin didn’t have fifteen different mamas. Worst case scenario, let someone from developmental be his wife. A.J. needs to be on TV again. Hell, so does Kaitlyn. Can Kaitlyn fake marry Randy Orton?

It’s the same point as the DiBiase/Quackenbush thing. If you’re paying this lady 400 bucks to guest star on Raw, can’t you give Daizee Haze the 400 and let something worth a sh** fill the role? Sure, I mean she’d probably use the money for pot, but worse things could happen. (Editors note: Correspondence from WWE home offices assures With Leather readers that nothing is worse than marijuana.)

Best: CM Punk Is Attempting To Save This

Watching Punk wave around his arms and more or less scream “whore” in the face of Orton’s “Small Potatoes” wife almost saved the segment, but really, Punk’s whole Wrestlemania program has been disappointing. After weeks of cutting the exact same promo over and over and having the impossibly useless members of the New Nexus dispatched by kicking, WWE goes back to the tried and true “your treasured vehicle that we were just introduced to is in danger” story. Remember Randy Orton’s race car? Remember the DX Express? Or Vince McMahon’s treasured Corvette? All introduced and destroyed in some way within the hour. At least show us Randy driving up to the arena in his radical flame bus a few months before somebody gets raped in it.

Speaking of the New Nexus storyline, man, If Cena had kicked them instead of punching them he would’ve saved himself a lot of trouble.

Worst: The Corre vs. Big Show, Kane, Laurel, Hardy

Poor Internet. For weeks they’ve been like “Big Show’s fighting The Corre at Wrestlemania! And he’s teaming with Kane! They’re gonna add Diesel to the team, and Brock Lesnar, and Matt Morgan and NATHAN JONES! ADD GREAT KHALI TO THE TEAM, ADD RAJA LION, WHAT’S GIANT SILVA UP TO” etc. And then time comes to reveal who they’re teaming with, and it’s these f**king guys. Santino Marella and the new version of Vladimir Kozlov, where the guy running him in EWR edited the stats to make his stamina a colossal f**king zero so he gets pinned if he’s hit once. If you give Kelly Kelly a drop toehold and tell somebody it’s her finisher, she could use it on Kozlov and get the duke in one move.

I thought Santino was going to go somewhere when he got Tamina over and had his big tease moment at the end of the Royal Rumble, but I guess continuing to make him compelling is way harder than handing him a script that says “DO THE COBRA” and shoving him through the curtain.

Additional joke: The Corres have not exactly left me breathless.

Worst: Lawler V Cole Must End In Blood

“Bloodlust” is a hard thing to explain. I pride myself on being an intelligent person and a fan of professional wrestling, and those conflict enough without me having to justify to some girl I know why someone must bleed to near death to justify months of being bad at his job. But really, there’s no other way this will feel right. Michael Cole needs to get beaten within an inch of his life, literally (and I’m using literally correctly here, as I want him to be within centimeters of the grave), and to express that he must be bleeding profusely and piledriven repeatedly. Lawler can make this happen, I know he can, but show limitations and future Senatoral runs might make it an impossibility.

A fist drop is not enough. If you drop a fist on him and pin him, you’ve proven nothing. Jack Swagger falling off the apron through a table because J.R. gamengiri’d him in the mouth is not enough. There must be blood, sobbing, begging, and piledrivers. End of story.

Best: Sheamus Is The Champion Of These Specific Continental United States Of America, and Furthermore

Sheamus is another great example of why you should continually evolve your opinions about wrestlers, because they are not always the same. Sheamus was the bomb when he started in ECW, having those great matches with Goldust. Then came the period of forced hairlessness, where a muscly guy in tiny underwear shows up out of nowhere and wins the WWE Championship and you’re supposed to buy him as a threat, even though the only possible threats he poses are the ones against heterosexuality. Then he starts flying under the radar again and gets awesome, but then someone starts disliking him, and he has to eat Triple H’s thighs and lose to DJ Pauly D in 20 seconds somewhere in the vast middle of Raw.

But Sheamus has persevered, and (at least for now) he is great again. Sheamus sort of lives and dies by how much offense he gets to show. It’s not incredibly realistic to watch him show ass to John Morrison’s crapoeira, but it’s perfectly wonderful to watch him kick Evan Bourne in the side of the head so hard he spins. That’s what your Sheamus is for: killing dudes who can make it look good. Abdullah the Butcher’s in the WWE Hall of Fame and guess what, 149,997 of his 150,000 career matches are just showing up and killing losers. Dude had three important matches in his 90 year career, and one of them involved a sombrero on a pole.

Worst: Evan Bourne Is A Bad Wrestler

No, really. He’s a nice guy and he does cool things, but man, taking the pro wrestling we watch as a real thing happening in real time, Evan Bourne is the worst. He got in one kick and thought “hey, this should be enough to keep Sheamus down, let me jump up top and throw myself to my own death.” He’s John Morrison on a much less exposed plane – nothing he does really makes sense, or looks like it hurts, or looks like it should be the logical offensive attack of a human being. At least give us the Rey Mysterio “thigh kick” pleasantries before going for the Dragons Ray, dude.

Best: Daniel Bryan Is Going To Wrestlemania

And speaking of nerds, The American Dragon has a match at Wrestlemania! I don’t care if it only last fives minutes and involves him springboarding into a Brogue Kick (note: both of those things will happen), and hell, I don’t care if he trips on his cape on the way down and slips on the ropes trying to pose. Bryan Danielson gets a championship match payday at the grandest stage of them all while Homicide gets to job to Eddie Edwards in a Masonic Hall somewhere in New Hampshire. That’s what you get for ending the greatest ROH Championship reign of all time, you jerk.

Sorry, old grudges die hard. I’m still mad at Nikita Koloff for ruining that Steiners vs. Sting and Lex Luger match from when I was like eleven.

No, in all seriousness, you don’t gauge Bourne’s talent from his WWE-ified offense, especially now when he’s in there to have three minute matches to make guys like Sheamus and before he got hurt, CM Punk and The Miz, look good (not that any of the three need help, but still). His value comes from how well he bumps. I mean, he crumpled up in a heap after he took that Brogue Kick. You mean to tell me R-Truth would have taken that kick like Bourne did? No way. Plus, when he does get to wrestle in matches longer than what it takes for me to get up, go to the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee, he does way more than that one kick. (Besides, judging guys by how many moves they have, ESPECIALLY in WWE is so 2004, man).

Plus, his Shooting Star Press is a thing of beauty.

Co-sign on the Triple H hate though. Fuck that guy, really.

/wow, I wrote a lot of words
//dick joke
///shows self out

03.22.11 at 2:18 pm

Brandon Stroud

@TH Don’t worry, I was in the front row in Cleveland when he and Delirious traded finishing moves for 40 minutes at ROH’s Survival of the Fittest. He’s a nice guy, but I’ve got a longstanding bias.

03.22.11 at 2:22 pm

ILovePaleHoseandPaleHos

“The Best and Worst of Raw 3/21/11, is featured in over 250 newspapers nationwide.”

Is that really true? And, if so, how many people just googled “newspaper” to find out what it is?

Triple H can do good matches against little guys while looking like he’s going to lose, like against Taka Michinoku and then Tajiri when they toured Japan that one time. I’d love to see Triple H vs Delirious.

So great to see intelligent wrestling commentary.

03.22.11 at 2:26 pm

Jason RL

AJ supremacy!

03.22.11 at 2:28 pm

Upstate Underdog

Reading this makes me wish I hadn’t stopped watching wrestling back in 2003.

03.22.11 at 2:30 pm

Greene

Soooo glad this column has a new home. I got into wrestling in the first place because it provides so much material for social, psychological, and business contemplation. The kicks to the face were an added bonus.

03.22.11 at 2:30 pm

TH

@UU

It’s way better today than it was in 2003. That is, if you stay away from TNA it is. Anywhere else though, and you’re good.

03.22.11 at 2:30 pm

BeeJ

Also, that bump is the same bump he uses regardless of how he is hit, correct?

03.22.11 at 2:33 pm

FunkyWarmMedina

Fuck Super 3H. I love Kaitlyn.

03.22.11 at 2:33 pm

Brandon Stroud

@Beej – Exactly. Bourne sells every offensive move like he’s a character falling down on Family Guy. Falls on his face, spreads his legs, throws his arm back over his shoulder like he’s knocked out and operating with rag doll physics.

03.22.11 at 2:54 pm

Dave

YES! So glad to have this back and have it find a new home! As has been said, it’s really nice to have a wrestling article that is intelligent and genuinely funny.

“Additional joke: The Corres have not exactly left me breathless.”

Hahaha amazing. The thing about that is, i really liked the original Nexus storyline, and I thought the Corre were finally looking good and like a big threat with the attack on Show and Kane last week. Then, Santino and Kozlov happened (and in theory, i like Santino and Kozlov). Just seems a bit of a waste.

Also, I want to quote every single thing you just said about Dolph Ziggler.

03.22.11 at 2:55 pm

Dave

seriously why is my picture John Morrison?

03.22.11 at 2:59 pm

Rusty

Completely hilarious Raw bests/worsts as always.

I have no reason to doubt that HHH transcript is legit, and that’s scary either way. WWE being this lazy with Orton’s wives is completely ridiculous, but Punk yelling at her was SOOO AWESOME, and my favorite part of the entire show.

I don’t think you, nor I, are going to get what we want out of Cole/Lawler. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Bryan/Sheamus isn’t relegated to bonus DVD duty.

Well come back to the land of the cyber-living! I always enjoyed your writing style, although you do make references that only someone who’s watched wrestling for 30 years can get! Luckily I’ve been watching for 28, Google makes up the difference.

03.22.11 at 4:13 pm

Jade

I watch wrestling only on occasion these days, so it’s been a couple of weeks, but somehow Sheamus has gotten even paler than the last time I saw him, and he was corpse-white then. How is it possible for a non-albino to be that pale?!Do they make him soak in bleach before shows or something?

The “threatening the loved ones” gimmick has really gotten beyond silly lately. Is it too much to make “Orton’s wife” look like someone who might actually BE his wife and not someone who just finished her set at the strip club? If I were either Orton or CM Punk, I’d be embarrassed to have been part of that.

03.22.11 at 4:34 pm

bigmfnal

The Lawler vs. Cole match also has to have a fireball. I’m calling b.s. if someone doesn’t get burned in that match.

03.22.11 at 4:44 pm

Matthew Hardaway

I really bought Randy Orton as a serious, threatening psychopath who regularly transforms into a snake up until he started talking about his swell family party bus.

03.22.11 at 5:08 pm

Illinois Smith

If there had been stuff like this to read in 1998 instead of Scott Keith, the world would be a better place.

Or, you know, at least more people would try to see the awesome things in Gay Fake Fighting. Whatever.

03.22.11 at 5:26 pm

Patrick

Oh thank God. I need wrestling journalism that doesn’t consist solely of “How will this affect the buyrate?!?!”

My prayer is that Bryan/Sheamus can be the new Savage/Steamboat, but we all know its 20 extra minutes will be nixed for a longer hug session between Cena and Rock at the end.

03.22.11 at 6:36 pm

Dr Obvious

LAME

03.22.11 at 6:44 pm

Destiny Talley

You’re such an awesome writer.

Additional Note: Worst of Raw was those Arby commercials that happened every one second.

GOOD
MOOD
FOOD

03.22.11 at 6:45 pm

BlackToothGrin

Finally, the best and worst of raw… HAS COME BACK TO THE INTERWEBS!!!
1) LayCool is LayAwesome. Teamed up with the nuclear heat magnet that is Vickie is always great to watch. Ziggles is getting over so well with them from that rub.
2) Not into Triple H’s promos for WM this year, or this whole WM match actually. The problem I see is that if you dont know about last year and the fact that H and HBK are BFFs, you dont really understand why he just showed up to take on Taker. This isnt really his fault. This is an attempt to get 2 very beat up guys to the ring this year for a story line next year. But Im giving the guy the benefit of the doubt. H’s career ends next year at Mania, against Taker, who will also end his career at 20-0. Im still not buying this feud and I saw the epic matches HBK and Taker put on in 09 and 10.
3) Beyond tired of Orton’s magical RKO super move. I hated it when SCSA did the magical stunner as well. You take a beating from a guy as big as Mason Ryan for 2-5 minutes then POW! Magical RKO and a 3 count. With no attempt to the sell the last 2-5 minutes of offense from a guy who has biceps larger than my head? Ugh. CM Punk is keeping this fresh and interesting and is also saving the writers bacon and reminded them that the reason Punk would be mad at Orton was for making him forfeit the WHC 2 years ago. His evil super villain genius gimmick is great. He delivers it well and it makes me want to punch the writers in the face for not pushing this guy with a title. But then again, he doesnt really need one to get over. The way Punk address Orton as “Randall Keith Orton” is fantastic.
4) Im going to say it. Im a Cole Miner. Michael Cole has taken lemons and turned them into a sweet sweet lemonade. All the poor guy ever did was show up, do his job, get made fun of by The Rock and be the guy that replaced Good Ole JR on Raw. He didnt force the hand, he didnt do anything to deserve the BS he got at first simply because he isnt JR. Im surprised he hasnt cut a promo blaming the fans for his behavior. It would certainly fit the storyline. All I ever I tried to do was my job but you people wouldnt shut up about JR. Or something like that. What put Michael Cole over in my head was his banging of the gong and “quitting” on NXT Season 3. Holy awesome was that good. Im wondering if this is how they are going to move Lawler out of the color position and replace him. Regal anyone?
4.5) I HATED JR when he took over for Vinnie Mac back in the day. But eventually realized his greatness. Michael Cole will get over, but it will take longer.
5) As for Sheamus being super pale, I read his interview in the new Muscle and Fitness rag. He puts on SPF 100 when he goes outside and he wears long pants and a sweatshirt with a hood on it.

03.22.11 at 8:56 pm

Philip

Somebody call help!

And yea Homicide can eat it. Welcome back Best and Worst, you were the best part of that old website

03.22.11 at 11:33 pm

Brian G

So glad this is back, it was seriously my favorite thing @ That Website. No one knows how to make wrestling awesome like Brandon.

03.23.11 at 5:57 am

Jim

“That’s what you get for ending the greatest ROH Championship reign of all time, you jerk.”

Fuckin’ aye, right.

03.23.11 at 10:10 am

Dr. Awesomus

Oh this is a welcome welcome sight.

03.23.11 at 1:15 pm

Ragingape

Pretty outstanding to see this again. It helps since I don’t have cable and don’t want to torrent a whole show. Now I can find the clips worth finding.

Daniel Bryan is just going to continuously feud with B’s favorite heels and make it even more awesome.